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What Are The Financial Penalties Of A DUI Conviction?

Someone who was convicted of a DUI would have to face a number of different fines, penalties and other such things, and even if they did not get convicted, they would still have to deal with a wide range of attorney’s fees.

For someone who got convicted of a first offense DUI, the fine would usually be somewhere in the $2,000 range, and it would usually be somewhere between $1,900 or $2,400 depending on which county the person was in.

They would also be looking at attending a DUI school, which would cost around $700 if it was a 3-month DUI school.

The person would also have to deal with their insurance going up, although how much it increased would depend on the person’s driving record, how many points they had, their driving history, types of cars they drove and a lot of other things.

A DUI conviction could also affect things like life insurance, although it would probably not affect health insurance.

These are just some of the potential costs the person could be hit with immediately and in the near future after getting convicted of a DUI. There would also be the cost of losing a job, a promotion, a potential new job, their career or their board certification to be a doctor or a nurse or any other type of profession.

Additional Consequences That A Habitual Or Repeat DUI Offender Would Face In California

There would be a minimum of 10 days in jail for a second offender, although some counties start the penalties much higher. There are alternatives to jail, but 10 days is the minimum and the maximum would be a year.

On a second offense, they would be looking at 2 years of license suspension if they were not on probation and after 3 months they would be able to get an ignition interlock in their vehicle so they could drive with that.

A third offense would result in a mandatory 120 days in jail, although in a lot of counties, the person could avoid that by doing somewhere between 6 months to a year in a residential treatment program.

The fines would go also up on a multiple DUI charge as well as the length of the DUI school so a person would be looking at.

With the ignition interlock device, the person would have to blow into a device to make sure there was no alcohol in their system when they were driving. The probation for multiple offenders also would tend to be longer.

The list just goes on and on, and a lot of different penalties could come in and increase the punishment for someone who has multiple offenses along with a number of other different criminal charges that happened because the person was starting to stack things up, like driving on a suspended license, prior convictions and probation violations.

An Accident Because Of A DUI Could Affect Your Insurance Rates And Coverage

In case of an accident, the insurance company would be required to cover the person medically and they would have to cover for the vehicle and the other vehicles so long as the person was within policy limits.

Every insurance company would be different. However, the insurance company would be required to cover the person for any damages they had caused when they got a DUI including paying for medical treatment, although there would be a very good chance they would raise the rates and then drop the person after there had been an accident and especially if there were injuries involved.

For more information on Financial Consequences Of A DUI, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you’re seeking by calling (415) 523-7878 today.